


Piet

by baroque_mongoose



Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-11
Updated: 2014-12-11
Packaged: 2018-03-01 01:53:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2755172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baroque_mongoose/pseuds/baroque_mongoose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Russian Ambassador, Pavel Ivanovich Kuchtanin, dies in hospital.  At the funeral, Lord Heversham (formerly Ardsley Wooster) meets a certain Piet van Doren, and soon discovers a great deal about Kuchtanin that he never knew, despite having been one of his closer friends.</p>
<p>Piet is a desperately grief-stricken man; and he can't keep silent any more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Piet

My daughter Agatha is soon to be married. There is something of an irony about her choice of husband; but it is a pleasant one. Gil, you see, has been busy of late rebuilding diplomatic relations with Poland, since King Wladyslaw has proved to be a much more reasonable person in all respects than his late mother. Britain, on the other hand, has not taken any trouble to do that, or at any rate not officially, though I have naturally been helpful and friendly to the Polish diplomats as they re-established their Embassy a few doors away from ours. But when Prince Marcin, one of the King's younger brothers, came to visit Gil, there was a grand ball to celebrate, and he and Agatha promptly fell in love. Therefore, I suppose, we have some kind of diplomatic relations whether we sought them or not.

I never expected that my daughter would end up as a Princess; after I received my title, it took me quite long enough to get used to the idea that she was Lady Agatha Wooster. It is less surprising that she will be moving far away from us, since by the nature of our situation we are surrounded by people of all nationalities here, and it was always likely that one of them would win her heart before I retire and we return to England. Fortunately, I already knew a great deal about Prince Marcin, and speaking to him in person only confirmed my view that he is a good, kind, sensible young man, not unlike his brother the King. He is a spark, but not a strong one, and Agatha has quite enough experience of dealing with sparks in general to be able to cope with that easily. When one has seen Gil doing the Vesuvius, as his administrator Donatella likes to put it, there is not much a lesser spark can do to unnerve one.

But there is, alas, one person who will not be attending the wedding after all. My old friend Pavel Ivanovich Kuchtanin, the Russian Ambassador, had to keep a more pressing engagement that none of us can delay. I have lost friends before; but I am a diplomat, and before that I was a spy, and those in both professions tend to be at risk of murder or assassination. Kuchtanin, however, died of natural causes. He had had jaundice for some time, and become gradually more unwell, until about a month before he died he was admitted to the local hospital and did not emerge until they took him to the mortuary. Since he was only about my age, and I am not entirely a well man myself, I feel the brush of bony fingers on my shoulder. I should, barring accidents or a sudden worsening of my condition, still live for several years yet; but I have taken the warning, and, since my wife has been pressing me to collect my memoirs, I have now started to do so. I have no idea who will read them, but Lucilla appears to think someone will.

I attended his funeral, of course. It was a bright morning in late September, with the leaves red and gold upon the trees and the first faint delicate sniff of winter in the air; in the midst of life, we are in death. Most of the staff of the Russian Embassy attended, as one would expect, and a number of other diplomats, especially those who, like me, had known him well. Gil did not come himself, but he did send Donatella as his representative, and she stood at the graveside with the rest of us looking modest and serious in a becoming black gown.

I was standing next to a very tall man; I guessed he was Dutch, partly from his height and partly from something about his face. I am easily over six feet tall, but this gentleman must have been three or four inches taller still. I had not seen him before, but then, if he was from the Dutch Embassy, that was not unlikely. For various historical reasons, it is located in a different part of town from the other embassies, and so the Dutch diplomatic contingent does not tend to mingle a great deal with the rest of us. I saw his face contort with grief as the coffin was lowered, and suddenly I realised who he was. Kuchtanin had, from time to time, mentioned that he had a friend by the name of Piet. This could only be he.

He was visibly struggling. I was grieved too, naturally, and I saw no point in trying to keep it out of my face; not only had Kuchtanin been my friend, but a few years earlier I had saved his life following his attempt to commit suicide after Tsar Arkadii's assassination. But Piet was fighting back tears. My heart immediately went out to him, and as soon as the funeral was over and I could decently speak to him, I did so.

“You are... Piet?” I asked. “Forgive the lack of formality; I have never heard of you by any other name. I am Ardsley, Lord Heversham, the British Ambassador here.”

He offered me his hand. “Yes. Pieter van Doren. By all means call me Piet; we Dutch are not very formal. I thought you must be, because of your eyeglasses. Pasha told me the Baron had made you a special pair.”

I shook his hand warmly. “I am glad to meet you after all this time, and only sorry it had to be in such circumstances.” Pasha, I thought; I have never heard anyone else call Kuchtanin that. Either it is the famous Dutch informality, or they were even closer than I knew.

“Yes, my lord; I am delighted to meet you too. I know you once saved his life.” He smiled sadly. “But none of us cheats Death for ever. He was too young.”

“He was,” I agreed. “Not yet fifty, I think?”

“No, not quite. He would have been fifty in November.” Piet sighed heavily.

“You look,” I said, “like a man who needs to talk. If my ear would be of any use to you, I am happy to lend it. Could I, perhaps, get you some lunch?”

His eyes brightened a little. “You are a kind man. Thank you. Yes, I do need to talk.”

There was a little restaurant nearby, far enough away from the cemetery to be out of sight of it, but close enough to be within easy walking distance. I took him there and chose the table I always use if I am having lunch there with someone who may need to speak in confidence; it is in an alcove, rendering eavesdropping difficult. When we had ordered, he looked at me thoughtfully, and I noticed how strikingly blue his eyes were. I know only one other person with eyes like that, and it is Mr Nightingale, the tenor.

“You know he drank?” he asked, abruptly.

“Not entirely,” I confessed. “I did have some suspicion of it, but nothing certain.”

He made a wry face. “I'm rather glad you didn't know, or I should have been tempted to blame you for not stopping him,” he replied, honestly. “He always said you could do anything with words.”

“That is perhaps something of an exaggeration,” I said. “I am not sure I could talk a man out of drinking himself to death, if that is what poor Pavel Ivanovich did.”

“Oh, he did. The stuff wrecked his liver, over time. You obviously knew he had jaundice. Now you know why.” He paused. “What did you suspect?”

“When he heard that Tsar Arkadii had been assassinated,” I replied, “he came to tell me at the British Embassy, because the Tsar and I knew each other personally and were on friendly terms. He was clearly in a bad way, and so I sent for some vodka. He drank about a quarter of a bottle, with no noticeable ill effects. That told me he was well used to alcohol.”

“Was that all?” asked Piet.

I nodded. “Effectively, yes; I was a little concerned at the time, but since I never saw him drunk either then or later, I could not tell whether or not he had a serious problem.”

“No, I suppose you wouldn't have done,” Piet replied, with a sigh. “He never did get drunk during the day. But by eleven o'clock at night I'd be putting him to bed, because there's no way he would have got there under his own steam.”

“You were a wonderfully good friend to him,” I said. “He must have appreciated you so much.”

“I was a damn sight more than that,” Piet retorted, with a flash of anger. “And I've had enough of not being able to talk about it. If you get up and walk out, so be it.”

I stared at him. “Why on earth would I get up and walk out?”

He gave a short, sharp, mirthless laugh. “Ha! Didn't your country lock up Oscar Wilde?”

“Yes, I'm afraid it did, but don't go blaming me for it,” I replied. “If I walked out on you now, I would be some kind of monster, and I assure you I am not that. You have, in effect, just told me that you've lost the person you loved. And you think that would make me walk out? What do you think I am?”

“Well, I didn't know,” he replied, slowly. “I knew you were a decent man on the whole, but I also knew you were a prudish Englishman.”

“I _am_ a prudish Englishman. But that hardly matters, in the circumstances. I'm sure you weren't going to try to tell me any... ah... personal details, any more than I would if I had just lost my wife.”

He smiled apologetically. “Thank you for that. It's a pity he didn't talk to you about me; but then, he didn't dare tell anyone. He was so terrified it might get back to Russia. It doesn't go down well over there, so he said.”

“Ah, well, that explains why he didn't, because I was wondering that myself,” I said. “I... feel awful now. So many times I talked to him about Lucilla and the family, and I never knew he didn't feel he could talk to me about you.”

“Well, it wasn't your fault,” said Piet. “Don't think he didn't trust you; I'm quite sure he did. He always spoke very well of you. I think it was far more himself he didn't trust. If he got into the habit of talking to you, he didn't know what he might let slip to other people, especially around the Russian Embassy. You know yourself they weren't all friendly towards him, particularly not during the civil war when some of them were all for that man Andropov and the people behind him.”

“I do understand that. But what a terrible situation to find oneself in!” I said.

Piet nodded soberly. “Yes. It was a little easier for me in that respect, because there's more tolerance in Holland. Not that everyone is tolerant, but at least I could talk about him when I wrote home. He didn't want anyone here knowing, though, and... well, I respected that fully while he was alive, but I can't take it any more. Drink problem or not, I was proud of him; he did a great deal of good. I don't want to have to mourn him behind closed doors.”

“I certainly don't see why you should have to do so,” I replied, warmly. “I lost my first wife very suddenly, and so I understand what it is to lose someone so close. That sort of grief should not be borne alone. You need support and friendship at this time.”

The waiter arrived at this point with our lunch. Piet stared at his plate.

“It looks delicious, but I'm not as hungry as I thought,” he confessed. “I may not be able to eat it all.”

“Please don't feel obliged to do so,” I insisted. “Eat as much or as little as you like.”

“Thank you. Your kindness means more to me than I can say.”

“How could anyone be less than kind to you at such a time?” I replied.

“Oh, believe me, many people would find it in them,” he said. “Especially, it appears, in Russia.”

We ate in silence for a little while, but he seemed to have more on his mind. After a few minutes, he said, “I don't blame him for drinking, you know. I don't want you to think I do. Even though it wasn't easy having to deal with it.”

“If he felt he couldn't talk to anyone about the person who was most important in his life, then he would naturally have been very stressed,” I replied. “Some people drink in order to help them deal with stress. I've done it myself, though never to any great extent; I can't claim any credit for that, though, since I was always well aware at the time that reducing my concentration level to any significant extent was likely to get me murdered. I suppose he told you I used to be a spy.”

“Oh, yes, I know the whole story,” said Piet. “All about what happened in Paris. He was very shaken by that at the time, but he still couldn't get over the fact that you confessed what you'd done, even though you thought he'd have you killed for it.”

“I had to,” I replied.

“Yes... I suppose you did. But, again, plenty of other people in your situation wouldn't. And you're right about the stress. The drink was his way of coping with it. It works pretty well if you do it just once in a while, but when you're doing it all the time, eventually the drink causes more stress than it cures. But by the time you get to that point, you can't stop.” He paused. “It's why I don't drink at all these days. If I hadn't stopped, I could have seen myself ending up like him just because of all the trouble I was having dealing with his addiction.”

“You're a brave and sensible man, Piet,” I said.

“I did what I had to. Same as you.”

He did, in the end, manage to get through a reasonable lunch, and afterwards I asked if he was based at the Dutch Embassy. He was, so I offered to walk back there with him, since it was not far out of my way. He accepted with gratitude, and we parted company at the doors of the Embassy on very friendly terms; he will certainly be among the guests at our next dinner party.

I returned via the Russian Embassy, because I understood that the new Ambassador would be arriving that afternoon and it was only polite to go round and greet her. However, when I arrived, she was not yet there, and I was taken aside by some minor envoy.

“Lord Heversham,” he said, “you left the funeral with Pieter van Doren, did you not?”

“I did,” I replied, somewhat surprised. I had not realised that anyone knew Piet at the Russian Embassy. “What of it?”

“Ah. Well, you should be a little careful of him,” the Russian explained. “There have been some most unpleasant rumours concerning him and our late Ambassador. Obviously, there cannot have been any truth in them; but it is known that van Doren has, ah, unnatural inclinations, and since you are a man careful of your own reputation...”

I held up a hand to stop him. It may possibly have been a little closer to his face than was strictly diplomatic.

“If you do not immediately stop talking,” I said frostily, “you will regret it.”

“But, my lord, I was only trying to help you!” he protested.

“Idiot,” I snarled. “I used to be a spy. Do you think I don't know how to judge a person for myself? Pieter van Doren is my friend, and, for your information, I am quite aware of his inclinations. I don't happen to share them, but I don't presume to cast judgement on them either. Indeed, I am very much of the opinion that he is a better man than you are.”

“B...b...b...”

“Yes, just go away and think about that for a while, will you? Somewhere out of my sight, for preference,” I said. “I don't want to cause a diplomatic incident, especially not with your new Ambassador about to show up.”

The Russian, very diplomatically, retreated.

I waited a little while, but the new Ambassador did not arrive; she was supposed to be coming here via the Corbettite railway, so what had happened to delay her I could not imagine, but delayed she was. Eventually I made my excuses, promised to call the following morning, and returned to the British Embassy.

I did call the following morning, only to find her with her coat on, about to leave the building in the company of a small convoy of staff. “Good morning,” I said politely. “Am I right in thinking that you are Svetlana Gennadiyevna Belovskaya, the new Ambassador?”

“That is correct,” she replied, with a smile. “And you are...?”

“Ardsley, Lord Heversham. I am the British Ambassador.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you. I am just going to pay my respects at the grave of my late colleague. It seems a fitting way to begin my work here, especially since he decided not to be buried at home in Russia.”

I knew the reason for that decision now; before I met Piet, that had baffled me. “I will walk with you, if you wish,” I said. “It is not too far. He was a good friend of mine.”

“I am pleased to hear it,” said Madame Belovskaya. “I hope you and I will be friends too, my lord. Were you at his funeral?”

“I was,” I replied. I noticed that none of her staff was offering her an arm, and therefore I did so. She took it, apparently a little surprised; later, I realised that she thought I was somewhat old-fashioned. Perhaps I am, but she did not object to it.

It was a windy morning, and there were leaves dancing and eddying on the breeze. Madame Belovskaya's dark green silk skirt wrapped itself about her legs and flapped like a loose sail; ladies do not tend to wear crinolines these days, which no doubt normally makes for greater ease of movement, but not on a blustery day. “Is it often like this here?” she asked, trying to wrestle it as elegantly as possible.

“I'm afraid it can be. You might, perhaps, wish for a longer coat. My wife would be able to tell you the best place to get one.”

“Thank you; I have one in Russia, so I will send for it. I was told it would be warmer here, and it is, but I was not expecting it to be so windy.”

“Then I hope it arrives soon,” I replied, “because if it is windy at this time of year, it normally continues to be so for a while.”

She laughed. “I shall sit in the Embassy until it does, then! There is a great deal of work to do there.”

“You will have to go and see the Baron at some point, though,” I said.

“Ah, yes. But that hardly counts. I need only step into a flyer.” She paused. “I have heard that you and he are good friends.”

“We are,” I replied.

“So, what sort of man am I dealing with?”

I liked her direct approach. “A highly intelligent one,” I replied, “but I imagine you knew that. Gil is also generally fair-minded, insightful and passionate – occasionally to a fault. He loses his temper easily, but he will apologise for it afterwards if he knows he was wrong. But he has an honest and generous nature. I could not ask for a better friend.”

“Ah, then that is why they sent me.” She smiled mischievously at me. “Because, you see, I never lose my temper.”

“Then you will probably have no trouble with him,” I said.

“And what about you, my lord? I heard you were... a little sharp yesterday with one of my staff.”

“I was,” I replied. “But I will make no apology for that. He merited it.”

“Since he will not tell me exactly what was said, I am inclined to believe you,” she said. “Still, I do not know if you are as temperamental as the Baron.”

“I am not,” I replied. “I keep my anger for when it is needed.”

She nodded. “A sound enough policy. But now I will admit that I am curious. Tell me, my lord, what exactly did Valerii Nikolayevich say that required anger on your part?”

“I think if he will not tell you that himself, I had perhaps better not do so,” I replied, after a moment of consideration. “I would rather you did know; but it should come from him.”

“That is fair,” she agreed. “Frustrating; but fair.”

We were at the cemetery now, and I led her to Kuchtanin's grave. There was no headstone yet, since it was still in the process of being carved, and this would take a little while, since the inscription was in three languages. There was, however, a wreath which had not been there the previous day. It was made of green twigs and ivy wired into the shape of a heart, studded with little purple Michaelmas daisies and some white flower of which I did not know the name.

“I did not know there was a widow,” said Madame Belovskaya.

“Not a widow; but the love of his life, nonetheless,” I replied.

“Did you know her?” asked Madame Belovskaya.

“Him,” I said, quietly.

I saw a moment of shock in Madame Belovskaya's eyes. What she saw in mine I am not certain; but she said no more on the matter, and when I next went to visit the grave, that wreath was still there, undisturbed by any disapproving Russian hand.


End file.
